Return

My morning routine was significantly interrupted a couple of months ago, not by my illness or any other tragedy but by our adopting a dog. We started out just fostering her, to save the life of a sweet animal who lives to love and protect her people but whose age makes the local shelters put her in the “unwanted” class, immediately slated for the big sleep.

To be fair, the bitter cold and my growing intolerance of it had already put a significant dent in my favorite predawn routine of sitting on the front porch for hours, contemplating the mysteries of the universe as I listened to the leaves rustle on the ground, the rain on the street, the rail and river traffic just a couple of miles to the south. And my own secret negativity, left unchecked and unexpressed, coupled with mounting language issues, prompted me to stop my blog over a year ago. At the time, material concerns took over and any intellectual umph I may have been able to gather needed to go toward fighting with the disability insurance company. I simply had no thoughts fit for broadcast.

This morning, in the grip of a migraine on top of the searing hip pain and all-over muscle ache that are my constant companions, I sought refuge on the porch, bundled up and stayed out after taking the dog for her postprandial constitutional around the yard. I thought perhaps giving up cigarettes was finally catching up with me and the nauseating pain in my head might be helped by a quick smoke. It wasn’t, and I’m still waiting for my pain meds to kick in.

Which brings me to my semi-epiphany for the morning. I’ve gotten into the habit of listing all the things I need to take care of on any given day as I wake up and have the one espresso I allow myself anymore. Most of the time I’m carrying over tasks and chores undone from the day or even weeks before, each time feeling the same anger and disappointment with myself for becoming such a slacker, for being so unreliable, for starting each day with hope in my heart that it’ll be different, only to crash and burn late morning and become completely useless for the remainder of the day.

This morning on the porch I decided that instead of listing chores, I would focus on the things for which I’m grateful at the moment. That I still have a porch to go out and sit on, for starters. That somehow, money continues to come (sometimes just in the nick of time) and we’ve yet to miss a house payment. That my daughter is healthy, happy, well adjusted, and getting ready to fly the nest soon. That my wife hasn’t tired of watching the woman she loves be sick and in pain all day every day for the past I can’t remember how many years, knowing that it’ll continue for years to come. In all likelihood, my wife is probably just as tired as I am that I’m still sick, but she hasn’t left me and that’s saying something if the rest of the folks in my Lyme support group are anything to go by.

I still have friends who care and reach out to spend time with me, even when I go for months withdrawn into my own bad attitude. I even have friends who turn to my wife & me for help, when I wouldn’t have thought we were in a position to help anyone other than ourselves. (My counselor and naturopath both think we’re crazy to let a friend stay with us for a few months while she gets back on her feet—they’re worried about the toll the added stress and disruption to my routine will have on my health, which has stalled if not gotten worse in the past few weeks since she’s been with us.)

Later this week I have a coffee date with my old boss, whom I would love to work for again. I had a semi-waking dream last night that she offered me a job and I was healthy enough to accept. I wonder if wanting to work is a symptom of a greater illness. I didn’t want to take a leave to begin with, put it off until my health issues began impacting my work, my reliability and accuracy began to suffer. It’d be no different if I went back now, would be worse since I still only really function from about five to eleven in the morning. After that, I can’t hold onto a thought long enough to bring it into action and am good only for resting, watching television, yarn projects or rereading books I’ve already forgotten. (I must say, having Lyme disease certainly has saved me a ton of money on literature, since I’ve been able to make my way back through my personal library and have yet to remember enough of a book to not enjoy rereading it.)

I spent too much of yesterday feeling sorry for myself for not being healthy enough to go back to work, for not having the stamina to accomplish more than two or three “chores” in a day—even when those tasks don’t involve physical exertion as none of my chores do anymore. Phone calls exhaust me. Maintaining a positive attitude exhausts me, even before I was daily confronted with a vortex of negative energy.

But, even though I’m still nowhere near where I was before I got Lyme, my mental faculties are picking up a bit and when I’m on I’m on for a little longer than I was this time last year. I haven’t struggled to find the words for these ramblings as often as I was doing only six months ago, and for that I am grateful. I know I’ll fade quickly today, can feel it happening already even though I’ve been up for only two hours. The pain is just too great today, despite my breathing and meditation techniques. I may not do any chores at all today, and will probably feel all the worse for it tomorrow. Obviously, I’m still working on accepting my current situation without rancor. I suspect this is my life’s task.